


not like going, but like going back

by 26stars



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Greek god au, psyche and eros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29653953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Jemma has been gazing out at the mountain in the distance for years. She doesn't know it, but the mountain has been gazing back.Retelling of the myth of Psyche and Eros
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21
Collections: Femslash February, Marvel Fluff Bingo, Women of the MCU





	not like going, but like going back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallblueandloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallblueandloud/gifts).



> So back when I was writing Flor's pick for the Fluff Bingo square 'greek god au', I got the inspiration for a Medusa Maydaisy story and wrote the whole thing before I realized it wasn't the least bit fluffy. Thankfully, I loved what this myth did for Skimmons, so here it is. 
> 
> Title from 'Til We Have Faces' (a retelling of this myth by CS Lewis)
> 
> For Esby

Once upon a time, there was a girl.

Like most girls who are born beautiful, she might not have known she was unique if it hadn’t been for everyone telling her so, every single day of her life. Jemma didn’t pay much attention to the comments; it didn’t stop her from running through her parents’ courtyard and out the gates to the pastures, where she would play nearly every day with the shepherds’ children and the lambs until she came home with grass in her hair and dirt on her clothes. When she got older, her mother put a stop to this behavior by ordering the guards not to let Jemma out of the courtyard and threatening the shepherds to stay away from her. This only resulted in the girl finding more creative ways to run away, and each time, she went a little farther.

Despite the vicious warnings her mother gave her about bad men and wild animals, nothing bad ever happened to Jemma, so she was never afraid.

Her favorite place to run was just beyond the wooded hills behind her city, where, if she broke through the trees on a clear day, Jemma could see all the way to the craggy peak of the tallest mountain in the region, the place where the gods were said to dwell.

Jemma had lots of questions for the gods, but she didn’t expect to ever get a chance to ask them—the mountain was too far to run to in a single day. So she just watched, and wished, and at sunset, she went home again.

~

The gods that Jemma’s culture knew all had names, and many of them had families as fraught as hers.

On the mountain that Jemma gazed at, unknown to most, lived a young goddess, the daughter of the goddess of beauty. Rumors had reached her mother’s ears that there was a fair creature in the land, drawing attention and interest far and wide. Jealous, the young goddess’s mother ordered her to smite the mortal’s city with destruction. Daisy, able to reach the earth through her mountain, command it, move it, and use it, looked where her mother was pointing. Through the earth, she found bare feet moving through the forest alone, a maiden unhappy with her mother’s rules and limits, straining against them in any way she could.

Daisy sympathized, and for that, she refused to quake the city. Her mother could rage all the wanted, but she still couldn’t quake the earth on her own.

Daisy kept watch over the maiden every day after that, tracking her paths through the forest and using the earth to swallow up or frighten away any threat that dared to go near her. The girl’s steps never strayed near her mountain, but that was all right. It meant enough to know that she was safe and doing her best in her own way to be free.

~

Jemma was twenty years old and still not married, and her parents were worried.

Men came from far and wide to gaze upon her beauty, and yet none of them wanted to propose to her. Our of desperation, her parents took her with them across the waters to Delphi to seek the guidance of the Oracle to Apollo.

“She must dress in black, climb a high mountain alone, and stay there,” the Oracle declared once her parents had coaxed her with a generous amount of gold. “A winged serpent will come to her there and take her away to be his wife. This is her punishment for angering the goddess of beauty—she cannot be loved by a man.”

Jemma didn’t say it out loud, but she was relieved by those last words. She could think of no reason to desire this to begin with. And hadn’t men always been one of the two threats her mother always warned her about?

Still, her parents grieved and made a terrible scene days later as they led her out of the city and walked the long road to the mountain, but Jemma only saw the moment as exactly what she’d always longed for—the freedom of the wilderness that she’d been chasing all her life. In the distance, the mountain grew taller as they came ever closer, and Jemma imagined that it was waving, beckoning her closer, recognizing her like an old friend.

~

Daisy felt every step on the road that brought the maiden to her mountain. She heard the parents’ grief, but she did not interfere. A rockslide might have delayed them, but it would not turn them back—they had already decided their daughter’s fate.

Daisy felt the pins as they drove a chain into the mountain to keep the girl there. They did not hurt her, but Daisy felt her fear. She didn’t want to be left alone outside after dark…because now came the unknown.

So Daisy came to her in the dark.

Unknown.

~

Jemma’s back was to a tall wall of rock, a chain holding her in place. Her parents had been reluctant to go to such extremes, but the Oracle had warned them that if Jemma ran, there would be no mercy from the gods—she would not live long enough to reach her home. Night had fallen, and she was cold, but the stars above were the clearest she had ever seen. She occupied her mind by locating the pictures of the gods in the stars while cold wind tugged at her clothes.

Jemma was only glad that it was not wild animals. Or men.

The Oracle had said it would be a winged serpent that would come and take her. So when the mountain began to quake, a low rumble beneath her feet, against her skin, Jemma held her breath, squinted into the dark, and waited for her fated monster to show itself. The ground quaked harder until the rock behind her suddenly split with a sound like lightning and the chain fell at her feet. Abruptly, all was still again.

“Come,” a voice whispered over her shoulder, and Jemma spun. The fissure in the rock was wide enough to pass through, and from the darkness inside, the voice whispered again.

“Come.”

Barely breathing, Jemma put her hands on the side of the crevice, feeling her way by touch and stepping inside. In the deeper darkness, without even starlight, gentle hands found hers, drawing her further into the mountain.

“Don’t be afraid,” the soft voice whispered, and even though Jemma had never heard this voice before, she felt she remembered it, or perhaps only recognized it for exactly what it was.

“I’m not,” she whispered back. “I’m home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is only the first part of the story but you can read the rest of the myth [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_and_Psyche#Story).


End file.
